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Hasan a terrorist? Actually he’s more than that

By {screen_name}
Friday, November 13, 2009

It appears, sadly, that Major Nidal Malik Hasan retains his rank in the U.S. Army.

Even giving credit for some investigatory time to pass since Nov. 5, when Hasan killed 12 soldiers and a military contractor and wounded 42 others at Fort Hood in Texas, the facts seem clear enough to justify stripping Hasan of his Army rank.

We know that Hasan, a 39-year-old psychiatrist, was to be shipped out to Afghanistan when he decided to go all IED and shoot up unarmed soldiers who tragically mistook him as a comrade in arms.

Hasan has been reported to be conscious and speaking with the people caring for his wounds.

We can certainly hope that he also is speaking with interrogators. It would be nice to hear that those conversations are taking place in close proximity to a waterboard, but that’s probably unrealistic, given the leanings of the current administration.

Hasan was charged with 13 pre-meditated murders, which is nice, one supposes, but rather misses the point.

No doubt he also is receiving counseling, emotional, legal and otherwise.

To be sure, we know now that when faced with attacks on home soil, the powers that be in the military and elsewhere have demonstrated their willingness, if not unshakable determination, to prepare indictments and offer therapy.

One can just see the bad guys starting to sweat.

The administration and military, of course, are not alone.

The current bout of hand-wringing centers on the question of whether Hasan was a “terrorist.”

Time Magazine, apparently on a slimming program that would turn Roseanne Barr into Kate Moss in a matter of days, wonders aloud “Is Hasan a terrorist?”

Hint: Crying “Allahu Akhbar!” — “Allah is Great!” — and opening fire is generally considered evidence of intent to kill, maim and frighten or terrorize — ergo, Hasan is a terrorist.

On other pages, the newsweekly plumbs faux depths by investigating whether popes are uniformly Catholic, and whether pigs are possessed of a hidden ability to fly. The latter apparently remains a stubbornly open question.

Hasan’s motivations spoke loudly for themselves, but not nearly as loudly as his deeds.

Thirteen dead, 42 wounded is just the beginning.

Hasan seems to have been in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam who was born in New Mexico (?!) and posts message on his Web site calling on Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

Al-Awlaki is something of an imam to the stars, it seems, having counseled two of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

When not consulting with the likes of al-Awlaki, Hasan was discussing the need, at professional conferences, for the beheading of infidels. It seemed not to have occurred to the gathered psychiatrists that the whole beheading thing tends to diminish demand for their services, but then a lot of nuance got ignored when it came to Hasan.

One person knowledgeable of Hasan’s rants observed that no one wanted to “share a foxhole with Hasan.”

No one, however, did anything to make sure that Hasan was actually on the same side of people whose uniform he wore.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, apparently.

There’s an interesting section of long-undiscussed document, the Constitution, which addresses itself pretty directly to the issue of Hasan.

It defines the business of levying war against the United States, or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

Just spitballing here, but it seems that killing a dozen soldiers and a contractor, to say nothing of wounding 42 other people on an Army base, might qualify as levying war and adhering to an enemy, in this case radical Islam.

Whether Hasan was a terrorist is a strange debate that is far afield of the point.